Fasig-Tipton will conduct its Florida select 2-year-old sale on Tuesday at Calder Race Course in Miami, and both sales officials and consignors have reason to believe that the auction will continue the steady, upward trend in the overall select juvenile market.
Fasig-Tipton will conduct its annual selected 2-year-olds in training sale on Tuesday at Calder Race Course starting at 11 a.m. A Fasig-Tipton spokesman, Terence R.B. Collier, expects about 250 horses to go through the sales ring. There are 31 Florida-breds cataloged for this sale.
The second of two under-tack shows is to be held Sunday at Calder. Collier was very pleased with the previous Sunday's showing.
"It's always a good sign when the horses with strong commercial appeal are the ones who show best under tack," he said. "And we had a number of those this past week."
Valentine Dancer was retired in early 2006 as one of the greatest California-bred racemares in history. She earned more than $1.1 million and won lucrative stakes at Del Mar, Hollywood Park, and Santa Anita.
When her owner-breeders, Al and Sandee Kirkwood, sat down to decide a mating, one thing did not enter their minds - leaving Valentine Dancer in California.
Valentine Dancer, 7, had outgrown her roots. She was sent to Kentucky and bred to the top stallion Storm Cat. The foal is due on March 16.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - One of a trio of Kentucky Derby prospects owned by J. Paul Reddam and trained by Doug O'Neill, Notional is also arguably the most talented California-bred colt of his crop.
A bay son of top California stallion In Excess, Notional has won the Grade 2 San Rafael and Grade 3 Risen Star this year to boost his profile as a classic candidate.
The colt is likely to make his final classic prep in either the Wood Memorial or Florida Derby. Those are premium prep races that indicate the regard that Reddam and O'Neill have for this colt.
ARCADIA, Calif. - She's an Eleven, the winner of the Melair Stakes last April, has been retired and will be bred to the Kentucky-based stallion Empire Maker in coming weeks, trainer John Sadler said
A California-bred, She's an Eleven, 4, won 2 of 8 starts and $216,954 for Lee and Susan Searing's CRK Stables. The $200,000 Melair Stakes for California-breds at Hollywood Park was her only stakes win. She's an Eleven later finished fifth in the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico and fourth in the Gradeo2 Hollywood Breeders' Cup Oaks at Hollywood Park last June.
Pennsylvania's 2006 champions are an impressive group that includes two Grade 1 winners and runners with combined earnings of more than $2.2 million.
Great Hunter, the California-based Grade 1 winner who finished third in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, leads all Pa.-breds by 2006 earnings with $630,000.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Despite this colt's name, the Saturday that matters is the first one in May this year. If all goes well, Any Given Saturday will be making the journey to post for the greatest two minutes in sports.
The dark bay colt began his year well with a victory in the Sam Davis Stakes at Tampa Bay and, now a winner in 3 of his 4 starts, will follow the Florida-to-Kentucky route to the Derby.
Topped by Eclipse Award champion mare Fleet Indian, a total of 58 horses are nominated for the 2006 New York Thoroughbred Breeders Inc. championships.
Fleet Indian, who scored back-to-back victories in the Personal Ensign and Beldame handicaps, both Grade 1's, won 6oof 7 starts and earned $1,473,720 on the year.
She has five rivals in the older female category, a group that has another Grade 1 winner in Behaving Badly.
Max C. Hugel, an owner-breeder and one the owners of New Hampshire's Rockingham Park, died at his Ocala home this past Wednesday at the age of 81. The cause of death was cancer.
Hugel's life reads like a Horatio Alger tale. He was born in New York City of European immigrants and never knowing his father, who died while Hugel's mother was pregnant with him.
"I wasn't born with a silver spoon," he told me. "I don't think we had any spoons."
Foaling season is in full swing, and few things can spur hopes and dreams more than seeing the newest arrivals by a young stallion.
"From a stallion manager's point of view, this is the most exciting time there is," said Don Litz of Maryland Stallion Station in Glyndon.
Five popular Maryland stallions who stood their first year in 2006 have babies on the ground. The first reported foal by a stallion from this year's freshman class is a bay colt by Dance With Ravens born on Jan. 11 at Tom and Chris Bowman's Dance Forth Farm in Chestertown, Md.